2. WiFi always is disconnected after closing / opening the lid and often times is unable to get signal back (or takes long time 3-7 minutes) for the signal to return. I have made the appropriate setting adjustment for windows not to cut power to the WiFi Card when in sleep mode, and also set the power settings to Maximum Performance. No luck. I have installed all of the latest drivers from Dell and, with support, also tried the Intel (more updated) drivers for Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235. No luck. Update to new Bios, still no major improvement. After hours with Dell support, it looks like they will send someone over to replace the WiFi card.

I was hoping that was it and that's the only issue I'd deal with. But wait, there is more:

3. Track pad is odd. I am not doing anything fancy, I just want to use it as a courser and left/right mouse click. Sometimes it is totally unresponsive, you have to move your hand off of it and try again for it to register that you are touching it. Sometimes it ignores left or right mouse clicks as if they never happened.

4. Screen brightness a mind of its own too. I have set the screen to be on Maximum brightness in all conditions (power & battery) and have disabled any dell options, that I can find, for it to manage brightness for me. Yet, half of the time it is at half brightness (thought I set it to maximum) and dims/goes bright on its own as needed. Is there a hidden option/menu for this 'feature'? The only way to get the full-brightness back on is to close the lid and open it again, it starts with full brightness (for a while).

5. The auto-rotate sometimes doesn't register that the screen was flipped . I simply have to move it to another side and back to the position that I want in order for me to get it to rotate correctly (I have not disabled auto rotate). I am scared of what I have seen so far.

Given the above, should I call dell and ask them not to do a WiFi replacement and instead replace the whole ultra-book or is this such a common issue that I will get the same thing again?

I was sooooo looking forward to this 'system' and to get my hands on it. But now, I am not sure. I do love how it feels, looks, how quit it is, and its overall potential but for a system that costs as much as it does, I can't have these issues both in terms of functionality and price. The above is just Day 1, about 10 hours.

I had the same problem with the screen brightness for a bit until I went into the advanced settings in the power options. There is an option called "Enable Adaptive Brightness" under "Display". If its on Yes it will set the brightness on depending on the environment. I of course turned it off and now I have it max brightness all the time.

This fixed the behaviour dramatically, but WIFI still occasionally drops out when the signal gets weak. So not completely fixed.I'm assuming this is largely a Windows 8 compatibility problem, and future drivers will fix any remaining bugs. The reason I assume this is because I have Windows 7 running on my XPS 12 too on a separate partition, and have not once had problems with the WIFI when in Win7 (which makes up about 70% of my overall usage).

Overall I love my Dell XPS 12 - although I'm still unimpressed by the problems it initially had (and still has to a degree). A machine this expensive should work like a dream straight out of the box (which it clearly doesn't). To me the main problems lie in bad driver development for the components. I guess manufacturers aren't used to building drivers for Windows 8 yet.

#4, screen brightness, was fixed. All other issues, however, still remained and by now I spent many days & hours with Dell support. The Support engineers were great & knowledgeable but still could not fix the issue. My XPS 12 is being returned to dell and I am waiting for refund.

I agree with Sannin, given how much they charge this machine should be perfect out of the box. In my case, even all of the latest drivers would not fix my wireless, trackpad, or screen rotation issues. If the wireless was stable, I could live with the other issues while they fix them.I paid too much to deal with so many issue.

I think Dell should have offered to have this machine with Windows 7 while they are working out on the Windows 8 issues, but that was not an option. :(

I am back to researching which Ultrabook to get, once I get the refund.

i have had 3 Dell netbooks 2 of them all of them had some type of issue 2 was connectivity and one the screen has bad pixels that developed after a year or 2. non of them crash but they are buggy i would try the same unit from a newer batch or something else entirely.

I had the MB, WiFi, and Screen replaced by Dell tech and it still has major problems staying connected and that's after another dell remote connection has numerous changes to the WiFi adapter settings. It still disconnects when move the screen sometimes and always when you close the lid regardless of power and windows settings. But more importantly is the frustrating screen brightness. Why should plugging in my laptop; drop the screen brightness to 30% and make ibt basically unseable untll it's full charged? When I unplug the Dell it goes back to 100% brightness but this is no way to run a laptop forcing screen brightness to the minimum while it's charging which is the normal state when using it and plugging it in at while sitting at a desk. I can't wait 4 to 5 hour for it to fully charge and then return finally to full brightness this is crap they way it's designed. When I unplug the charger the setting is identical to the minimum setting when you press the function key and F4 all the way down to minimal brightnesss. That's nuts. That's wrong and never had a laptop do this!! Crazy.

Totally unacceptable that charging forces the minimal screen brightness. IF thye had to put such a tiny adapter to charge battery that they require minimizing the screen brightness in order to charge it then shame on them that is bad bad bad bad bad engineering!!

I love my Dell XPS 12 - easily the best machine I've ever used and I find the engineering to be top notch.

I experience none of the problems you've outlined so it seems like there is something seriously wrong with yours!Pretty crazy to get all those components replaced instead of getting given an entirely new machine. Was that yours or Dell's decision?

The brightness problems can probably be fixed in your settings - though i'm sure you've Googled and tried all of this:

I am having the similar wifi issues and I noticed that on my xps 12 I don't have options to adjust power settings like im use to. I only have a balanced option or the ability to create a new power plan which consist of the same settings.
Im use to seeing balanced, power saver and high performance but I do not have those.
Also when I go under my wireless card I also don't have a "Power" tab like I keep reading everyone else has.
Does anyone know why im missing these options? Core I5 4gb xps12.
Thanks.

I have an XPS12 (new) purchased in August of 2013. it worked fine until I upgraded to windows 8.1 from 8. it then started doing exactly what you described. Infuriating! Dell support had me do a factory reset- problems continued, last week the screen went blank, when I ran a diagnostic it said 'no harddrive installed" I wound up having to send it to Dell, and they replaced the hard drive free of charge since its still under warranty. I got it back yesterday. It appears to be working fine so far- however, it came with windows 8 installed, and now I'm afraid to upgrade to windows 8.1.

I'm trying to work out all these issues with the xps and I stumbled upon something interesting last night that I wanted to run it past everyone.
I've been very frustrated with this Wi-Fi issue because everything works fine until I close the lid or put the system to sleep. When I wake the system Wi-Fi shows limited and I have to disconnect or reboot to fix. I recently noticed so far this only happens when I'm at home. At work I can never seem to replicate the issue.
I figured out the difference between my home and work wireless is the channel. At home I only connect to 5ghz N because I receive around 300 - 500mb speeds. So I decided to connect to my 2.4ghz channel and boom!! My system never disconnected again. I tested locking, closing lid, power button and just letting it sit to time out. Each time the wireless was connected when it awoke.
So I wanted to poll everyone that is seeing the wireless issue on what channels they are connecting to. Because for me it seems to be a 5ghz issue.
XPS 12 I5, 4gb ram,
Wireless card: Intel Dual band Wireless AC 7260 (Driver ver. 17.0.0.34)

On the 11th of March I received my new Dell XPS 12. I looked forward working with this device, however, I encountered many problems with it...:

- BATTERY: It looks like the battery is 'leaking': when the battery is fully charged, and the system has shut down, the battery doesn't show a 100% charge the next time the system is launched.

- BLUE SCREEN: I've had 4 blue screens with KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR in one month and the system needs to reset.

- SLEEPMODE: When the system goes into sleepmode after a period of non-activity, the system doesn't wake up proparly when I want to use my device again. This mainly occurs when the charger is plugged in. I need to do a hard reset by holding the power button for 10 seconds and then the system restarts.

- TOUCHPAD: when i want to go to the desktop mode from the windows screen by moving my cursor towards the desktop app with the touchpad, other apps open spontaneously. I need to close them everytime, to have access to the desktop mode. This only happens when the system just has launched. Switching from desktop mode to the windows screen doesn't generate this problem.

- SCREENROTATION: When I flip the screen, it doesn't rotate proparly. The auto-rotate sometimes doesn't register that the screen is flipped. Can I solve this by installing a proper driver?

I was also looking forward to get my hands on this device and work with it. Considering it's price and interesting design, I shouldn't be dealing with so many problems with a brand new system.